


Coward

by bookworm03



Series: Adult Relationships [1]
Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Best Friends, F/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 22:50:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5108507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookworm03/pseuds/bookworm03
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leslie Knope isn't a coward, except when it comes to Ben Wyatt. Best friends, post-college AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coward

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is or where it came from, but I was writing something else and then this happened. Leslie's POV, totally angsty but hopefully still a little funny and sweet... It's also totally cliche. :D 
> 
> Comments, kudos, etc. make my day so please share your feelings if you have a few seconds to spare!
> 
> EDIT: One commenter asked me if I could include a list of these stories in chronological order. Additionally, this whole series was not supposed to be this long, so the jumping timeline was kind of a stylistic choice on my part. That being said, this is the current chronological list and I will update it as any more stories are added in this universe. :) 
> 
> Friends  
> Regret  
> Delirium  
> Risk  
> Reward  
> Imaginary  
> Coward  
> Caution  
> Bold  
> Ambiguity  
> Brave  
> Impulse

Leslie Knope is not a coward. 

Leslie Knope dreams bigger than other people deem wise. She yearns to change things, to serve selflessly, to be better and do better, to break through glass ceilings and set things in motion that would alter the course of history… 

Or…something like that. 

But Leslie Knope is not a coward. 

Except when she is. 

“Ben! Leslie’s here!”

Leslie thanks a perky, spandex-clad Chris softly, wondering if it was super obvious she’d been crying. Her eyes felt puffy, but the walk from Ramsett Park had been crisp and the trees in fall are particularly beautiful, which always cheers her up. 

And then Ben's there, standing in the hallway of his apartment in jeans and a t-shirt, his hair messy because he’s probably been running his hands through it while working on spreadsheets. He sighs, the exhalation tinged with exasperation, and lifts an eyebrow. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” 

She shouldn’t be so affected by this. She is a strong, independent woman and if a man didn’t want to be with her well then, she would find someone who did - or not, her choice. Because, feminism and everything. As Ann Perkins reminds her constantly, she is smart and thoughtful and any guy would be lucky to have her. 

Except, Ben looking at her like this always seems to make something break inside and leaves her wanting to crumble. The unimpressed stare, the annoyance in his tone, like he just _knew_ it was coming and why did she keep putting herself through it? The suggestion that he knows what she needs better than she does…just because he’s known her forever and seen her breakup with a ton of different guys doesn’t mean he knows anything. 

He doesn’t know that she’s been in love with him since she was about fifteen, for starters. He doesn't know it hurts her heart when she sees him dating other girls - pretty, tall brunettes - who sift their fingers through his hair and kiss him in plain view of everyone. He doesn’t know in her mind anyone she dates pales in comparison to him. Because it's in her mind. Leslie has no real idea what it would be like to actually date him, kiss him, fuck him. It’s an illusion, a fabrication, a pipe dream. 

Because when it comes to Ben Wyatt, Leslie Knope is a big fat coward. 

She isn’t putting that in her memoirs. 

And ugh, he looks so smug and it makes rage bubble inside her. Her fists ball and a part of her wants to punch him just for being so cocky about the whole thing. She hadn’t seemed smug when Cindy or Kristine or Shauna had - 

“Picnic didn’t go so well?” 

Steam was practically coming out of her ears. All the anger she feels towards her now ex-boyfriend spills out and she launches herself forward, shoving Ben hard. 

“Ow!” He grabs her wrists gently. He always seems slight until his hands are on her and his long fingers coil around her like a snake. He holds her with ease. 

“What the hell was that for?” 

“I…” the bubble of rage had turned to a knot in her chest and the back of her throat starts to burn. She shouldn’t let it get her down, she should see the positive and move on and enjoy time with her amazing friends and…

“I’m sorry,” Ben had closed the distance between them and his arms were enveloping her, as if that was enough to shield her from whatever stupid feelings she was having about that stupid jerk Leon and whoever Rebecca was. She was probably a tall brunette too. 

As always, just when she thinks Ben is deadpan and sarcastic enough to keep her feelings suppressed he does something like this - he winds his arms around her and brushes her hair off her neck and whispers into her ear, promising her he’s there and everything will be okay. He doesn’t understand that as much as she loves Ann Perkins to the ends of the Earth, Ben’s arms around her were everything. A piece of her is lodged somewhere inside this stupid, arrogant, Science Fiction-loving man and when he holds her against him she feels whole again. 

She shouldn't need another person to make her feel whole, but he did and he didn’t even realize it. After over a decade of friendship he can tell when she’s elated or inspired or seething before anyone, but not that her heart beats a little faster around him...or that the blood coursing through her veins turns to fire when she smells his aftershave. 

And she doesn’t have the courage to point it out. 

Because around Ben, Leslie is a coward. 

“You want me to take you out and get you drunk?” he murmurs softly, the exasperation replaced with a smile she could hear in his voice. It warms her, like always. 

“Okay,” she whispers. She actually doesn’t want that. She wants to curl up in his bed and stay there and maybe sleep it off and find the energy to be optimistic in the morning. She wants to lie on his couch and watch Star Wars while he rubs her ankles and does a running commentary on every scene. She wants to slip into a delightful sleep where in her dreams he holds her face and kisses her like he’s going off to war and she’s all that matters and Leon never existed. 

But that doesn’t happen. It never does. Instead he takes her out and they sit at a little table, sharing a pitcher of beer and taking turns ordering rounds of shots while he gets really invested in watching a game of foosball and her thumb traces dents on the wooden table. 

“I never liked him,” Ben declares after another shot of tequila that makes them both groan. The room was spinning and she was fairly certain he’d have to put her in a cab, because there was no way she’d be able to walk straight when she finally stood up. At least she wasn’t thinking about her stupid boyfriend - _ex_ -boyfriend - and Rebecca. 

Much. It was hard not to wonder what she’d done wrong - again. 

“You never like anyone,” she slurs, her grin feeling sloppy and her head lolling to the side. “Name one of my boyfriends you’ve ever liked.” 

“Dave was okay.” 

“You called him dense to my face the morning after I slept with him.” 

“He didn’t even know who _Madeline Albright_ was, Leslie! Good lord. Open a newspaper,” Ben lashes out when his inhibitions are down. “But that didn’t mean I didn’t…at least he treated you well. He didn’t invite you to a picnic for another girl to break up with you.” 

“Maybe it’s my fault,” she admits reluctantly, her lowered inhibitions making her confidence fall. 

“It’s not your fault,” Ben assures her firmly. 

“Maybe I give bad blow jobs.” 

It’s worth it to see him choke on his beer, spraying some over the table. She mops it up with a napkin and a soft laugh. 

“I highly doubt that.” 

“How would you know?!” 

Ben gives her a little look that makes drunk-Leslie wish she could give him first hand experience. 

“I think you just date assholes.” 

“Ben! You can’t hate everyone I’ve dated!” 

“I don’t! I didn’t hate Dave, I just thought it was…you of all people should date someone with an interest in politics. The future first First Gentleman of the United States needs to know who Madeline Albright is.” 

She giggles into her beer because somehow that sounds both super silly and super awesome to her ears right now. 

“You’re a dork.” 

“I am? Whaaaat? I’ve never heard that before. This is brand new information.” 

Tom tells him at least fifteen times a week. She snickers. 

“Yes, a _total dorky nerd boy_.” 

“And you’re also a nerd.” 

She giggles again and he reaches out, rubbing her neck. 

“You wanna crash at my place?,” He flicks her hair off her neck. His eyes are bleary but warm and she wants to sink into him. _No, scratch that_ , she wants him to sink into her so she can feel him everywhere, in every pore of her skin. 

“We’ll watch whatever movie you want and I’ll make you pancakes.” 

“Okay,” she smiles softly and Ben’s long fingers slid down her arm and squeeze her hand. He knocks back what was left of his beer and then hers, hands staying linked over the table as he stands and tugs and they stumble into each other with a laugh. 

She thinks about what it would be like to be with him often, especially when they’re like this and his arm is steadying her against him. She imagines his warm weight on top of her instead of beside her and imagines leaving places _with him_ with him, not just together because they were Leslie and Ben and they’d done that for as long as anyone could remember. She imagines his hand around her hips instead of her shoulders and his mouth on her ear like she’d seen him do countless times to other girls with the obvious promise of more to come when they got wherever they were going. She imagines a jolt of electricity where they’re connected. 

Ann has accused her of dating people she doesn’t actually care to date so she could essentially wait for Ben. Ann may not be wrong about that, even if it was subconscious. 

“I care too much that you don’t like any of my boyfriends,” it was her turn to sound exasperated. 

“Sorry.” He bumps his lips against her forehead. “Maybe I just think you’re a good person and you date guys who take advantage of you and then hang you out to dry - which is why Dave is the only boyfriend I did like, because at least he didn’t do that.” 

“I love you,” she declares, brain too bathed in alcohol to remember to filter herself. It sounds too honest, too raw; the words cut her throat like glass instead of coming out bubbly and cheerful like she wanted them to. Ben smiles, not hearing it, and steers them towards his street. 

“I love you too.” 

_Not the same_ , she knew better than to scream. Not like a best friend or a brother, _I’m in love with you_. She just wishes she was brave enough to tell him as much without being afraid of losing him. She was brave enough to write she wanted to be Governor of Indiana in her kindergarten dream journal; she was brave enough to run for Student Council President even though it was totally a popularity contest and nobody actually cared about the issues; and she was brave enough to throw her hand up the first day of college when the professor asked someone to contrast the traditional feminist movement with modern feminism while everyone else shrank into their seats. 

She _is_ brave, but she isn’t brave enough to risk losing him. Even when he’s being arrogant, knowing she has Ben on her side, in her corner, affords her something. Arrogant jerk sometimes or not, Ben is rock solid when she needs him to be and he’s always there to catch her. 

She isn’t so brave that she’s willing to imagine a world where their relationship isn’t this - hand holding and drunken bar adventures and stumbling home together with rumbled declarations of affection. It might not be everything, but it’s better than nothing and he’s too important to her to lose. She’s playing it safe, which is so not her style, but she’s not brave enough to up the ante. She won’t gamble with him. 

Chris is already in bed when they make their way into the apartment. She loves being drunk with him too much, the lowered inhibitions, the touching, the intimacy. She wonders what would happen if he actually got a serious girlfriend. Would this person feel threatened? Would they have to stop? What if he got married? 

The very notion of that makes bile rise in her throat. This wasn’t forever; they couldn’t do this exactly like this for the rest of their lives. 

“Oh god,” Ben cups her face between his hands and gives her a dopey smile she’s seen a million times but still makes her heart stop beating. “We are so drunk.”

He rests their foreheads together and yup, her heart definitely stops. No matter how many times he’s done this or something like it, his easy affection never fails to rock her to the core. It’s moments like that give her a glimmer of hope that maybe she isn’t the only half of this pair feeling these feelings. It’s that brief, blissful instant before reality sets back in that keeps a fire stoked inside her that should’ve have died long ago. 

“Are you still making me pancakes?” she whispers as he navigates them through the hallway towards the kitchen. Ben nods, his arm staying around her as he works one handed to pour them both a glass of water and search for Advil. 

“Y’know what I was thinking of?” Ben murmurs softly a little while later, his face in her neck as his fingers trail down her spine. Drunk-Ben does this, cuddles her and holds her and lets her hold him back. She’s grateful he can’t see her face because there’s a lump in her throat and tears in her eyes and she longs for this with him without a tequila buffer. 

“What?” she replies, his fingers carding through her hair and his nose brushing against her shoulder. 

“Tom’s party junior year, where we played seven minutes in heaven drunk.” 

She cackles way too loudly and he snickers, covering her mouth with his palm, reminding her Chris is sleeping. Chris always slept with earplugs in whenever she was over anyway; they were never quiet enough for someone who’d be up at six to go running. 

“Oh god, that was crazy. How many people got prom dates out of that game?” 

Ben blushes because he totally got a prom date thanks to drunk seven minutes in heaven. She had not. She’d drawn Mark’s name and he’d shuffled her into the closet smelling of pot, holding a hand to her lips and giving her a silly smile followed by a few little kisses. He’d then asked if she thought Ann would go to prom with him. 

“What made you think of that?” 

Ben’s face grows redder and he gives her a funny look, turning back to the pancakes. 

“No reason.”

“Tell me!” she demands. The alcohol makes Leslie even louder than usual too. 

“I don’t know. I was just thinking about it. I was thinking about how you turned me down for prom.” 

“WHAT?!” Leslie hits him and they both stumble.

“Shhh,” he hushes, brushing her mouth with his hand again. A relaxed grin plays on his lips. 

 “I would have _never_ turned you down to prom!” 

“Uh…for someone who remembers every factoid, quote and insignificant detail of Pawneean and American History you seem to have forgotten this.” 

“I did not!” 

“We were sitting in my car after bowling that night a few weeks later. You had bowled…one-sixty - “ 

“Four,” she finishes breathlessly. His eyes, bleary with alcohol, sparkle. 

“Right. And Ann left with Mark and I took you home and I asked you to prom and you said no.” 

“That _never_ happened. I wouldn’t have said no!” It was coming back now - sitting in his car, the words he’d said, the response she’d given when she was a lot younger and a lot more brazen than she was now. 

“Well, now you’re rewriting history, Knope, because you totally did. I said instead of trying to find dates we should go together and you said you didn’t want to go as friends. So I asked Cindy.” 

“Right,” the word doesn’t even sound like it belongs to her when it comes out after a lengthy pause. She wants to throw up as Ben gives her a twisted smile. 

“You _rejected_ me and then you made out with A.V. Club Harvey.” 

She’d cried on Ann’s bed for two hours the next afternoon because he hadn’t gotten what she had so boldly tried to imply. She should’ve just said “no, Ben, I want to be more than friends with you. I want you to take me as a _date_ and kiss me goodnight and possibly shred my panties with your fingers.” Susan B. Anthony wouldn’t have been ambiguous, she’d have asked for what she wanted. 

“I can’t believe you thought of that,” Leslie laughs quietly, swaying into him. “That was forever ago.” 

“Uh, the day you broke my heart isn’t something I forgot easily,” his tone was teasing, but now the smile didn’t touch his eyes. 

_Crap on a crayfish_ , he was doing it again. 

This was their relationship in a nutshell. Her wanting him more and more with each passing second and him giving her just enough rope to hang herself. Just enough to cling to that everything else felt inadequate compared to him. Just enough promise to totally and completely mess with her head. Enough tiny, little moments that, strung together properly with enough subtext, resembled something significant. 

His fingers press into the skin at the back of her neck, rubbing his scruff from the day with his other hand.

“Princess Bride tonight, buttercup?” 

“Okay.” 

“Alright, I’ll bring these in,” he releases her again. “You wanna go get ready for bed?” 

And it’s done. It’s over. Just like that, just like always, the moment where she gets to pretend he might feel it too is ended with a simple, friendly squeeze of her waist and his command to go help herself to his clothes, his toothpaste and his bed, because it didn’t mean anything. It hadn’t ever meant anything. 

On his bed, wearing his t-shirt and a pair of his plaid pajama pants, they eat pancakes bathed in syrup and watch the Princess Bride. He calls her ‘buttercup’ and her body thrums every time in a way that’s essentially Pavlovian. He’s done it for as long as she can remember, since that first time they watched the movie together. When the pancakes are gone and Westley’s rolling down the hill calling “As you wish!”, Ben adjusts the pillows and snuggles down next to her. Leslie’s much more sober now, the alcohol veiling everything with warmth and goofiness and unearned intimacy. She settles on Ben’s arm and his hand finds hers, offering an affectionate squeeze. 

They’re adults now. No longer in college, no longer in high school where blurred boundaries were acceptable. In your mid-20s romantic relationships grow in significance, people start to at least contemplate the idea of long-term partnerships and marriage and it stops being acceptable to curl up in bed with your opposite sex best friend, wrapping limbs around each other and watching romantic movies. 

“Love you,” he kisses her forehead and manages to break her heart again. A tremor lingers in his voice she’s either never heard or never noticed before, flames flaring within her. Ben Wyatt: Simultaneously Breaking Your Heart and Lighting You on Fire Since Tenth Grade, was the title of her internal scrapbook. The one that held memories of civics class trips to Indianapolis where he made her listen to REM on his walkman the whole way; of parties where everyone else was being ridiculous and getting blackout drunk and she was happy to squish on the couch under his arm and tell him about the latest book she was reading. Pictures of them doubled over algebra notes together as he flew through problem after problem and made everything look easier than it should be. Slow dancing at prom after he stole her from Harvey for two songs and told her she was beautiful - Not she _looked beautiful_ , but that she just was. A statement of fact, as if it was inherent within her. Sitting up all night with him prepping for job interviews, writing papers together, movie nights, dinners. All of it. All of them. 

His breathing seems off as their heroes enter the Fire Swamp and Leslie tilts her head up, rubbing his chest. He was staring at her strangely, his eyes warm but narrowed and his brow creased with concentration like it did when he was thinking too hard. 

“What’s wrong?” she shifts more onto her side. His thumb rubs against her neck and he chuckles in the self-deprecating way that makes her smooth her palm over his chest reassuringly. 

“Ben,” she squirms even closer. “What is it?” 

There was something there, something behind his eyes she hasn’t seen before; as if whatever it was had been building under the surface for a long time and was threatening to boil over.

“Nothing, watch the movie.” 

“Beeeeeen, tell me,” she whines. He gives a little shrug and cuddles her tighter. 

“Shh, this is a good part,” he brushes his lips across her temple, pulling the blankets over them, and again, gone. Gone, just like that. 

She _would not_ tell Ann about this tomorrow. She would not make this moment into something it had never been. 

When he’s comfy and settled and falling asleep she starts reciting every single line verbatim (and doing the voices). He tickles her until she can’t breathe, pinning her against his side.   

“You’re _so_ dead come morning. If I wasn’t drunk and tired you would be so dead now.” 

“We’ll see,” she teases back, grinning when he yawns against her shoulder. A minute later he’s passed out for real.

***** 

Morning comes and Chris is still out running when they emerge from Ben’s room groggy, with bad breath and mild headaches. Ben makes more pancakes, using batter he’d saved from the night before, and she puts her clothes back on, folding his loaners in a neat pile at the foot of his bed. She washes her face and he sets a plate in front of her along with a mug of coffee topped with an appropriate amount of whipped cream. They’ve done this a million times. It’s easy, practiced. It’s quintessential them. 

The alcohol’s worn off and they aren’t touching anymore, but that’s normal. Ben keeps glancing up and staring at her hard while they eat, but whips his eyes away as soon as she notices. 

It still feels like he wants to tell her something, but can’t find the words. 

“You have that date tonight, right?” she broaches casually. “Eva, from that conference?” 

“Yeah,” he scrubs his face, a nervous twitch he’s had for as long as she can remember. “Yeah, I do, but hey, if you need me you can…call me if you need me, okay?” 

“Thanks,” she tries to smile, but there’s more. He’s holding back. It’s weird and unnerving and makes her skin prickle. Was this it? Was he going to tell her that if this girl worked out it would mark the beginning of the end? The end of drunk cuddles and forehead kisses and hand holding? The end of pancake breakfasts and watching movies in bed? The end of giving her scraps to cling to? 

She felt queasy just thinking about it. 

Leslie calls a cab and they do dishes together until it arrives, not really talking or saying much or even standing close together. When he walks her to the door he gives her a warm, but slightly stiff and quick hug, pulling back and holding her in front of him, but still not saying whatever's on his mind. 

She doesn’t press, because that would be hypocritical and also, she doesn’t really want to know. She wants to deny that this night marks a forage into an adult friendship and the end of everything she can’t bear to give up. 

His brown eyes hold hers, serious but soft, and she can see the words building in his throat and starting to form on his lips… 

But instead he just kisses her forehead brusquely, his scruff scratching her skin, and utters “call me later, buttercup,” waving as she descends the front steps and trudges over to the cab. 

_Huh_ , she muses. 

_Maybe he’s a coward too._


End file.
